Cloncaw's Journal

Cloncaw's Journal

Boys will be boys

Well eventually temptation won and Conor along with friend Ciaran ventured out across the pond to the island accompanied by Connie- now would be the time to make the bridge as it really is frozen solid if it wasn't so cold. Water is normally about 1m20 deep so if it had cracked there would have been some scramble for the bank. This has to be the coldest day here yet with temperature at -5 at 2pm sun came through for a short time after that but then down came the fog again- Caroline says water was freezing in the buckets with the horses as soon as she put it into the stables - now about 18days thawing taps and carrying water to horses and cattle as all the automatic drinkers are frozen. Bit frightening to here them on the radio talking about major roads being closed next week due to the lack of salt and grit available, I'm really getting a bit fed up as expenditure still occurs even though income is practically nil.

On the bird front feeders very busy and think the rooks must have tipped the tray of seed onto the ground but so much activity it's nearly all gone, the great tit and the pied wagtail came today as well as the usual callers.

Oh to be young and carefree like the boys, wonder could anyone propogate a tree to grow money like Deborah's grows icicles - wishful thinking unfortunately.

Conor has just told me that there is no schools opening till next Thursday - don't know if it's true though. I reckon the ice must be well over 20cm deep and the pond isn't that deep probably not much further than Conor or Ciaran's waist but the shock of the icy water would put me off. Fog came back down very quick and the whole place is eerie.

The boys are going to be off school according to Bat O Keefe until next Thursday so maybe it is a possibilty as they can get across no problem at the moment and the ground is so hard that moving either steel or poles by machine would do little or no damage. I would love to have the bridge done before Caroline's wedding in June.

Jacinta it is a very large pond when it was being made it just got bigger and bigger it's just got a clay bottom no liner great for birds and wildlife. Distance across where we want to put the bridge is 6m + but we can at least measure it now the boys can walk across, even if the supports across it get put in at least we will be able to access the island love to plant some trees and shrubs on it and a bench.

Is-nt it amazing, last nite the minister for snow (Gormley) said we were exaratering and the weather conditions was-nt as bad as we were making out. He could-nt understand what we were complaining about. Minister for transport is M.I.A abroad and refuses to come home as it not his problem. Now Muggins O Keefe is closing the schools due to health and safety reasons. I heard a barrister on the radio today saying it might be possible to take action against the council for crashesn on the ice because of their failure to grit